Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-07

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The charts below show the changes in ownership of electrical appliances and amount of time spent doing housework in households in one country between 1920 and 2019.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Percentage of households with electrical appliances (1920-2019)

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The diagrams illustrate the percentage of electrical appliances ownership and weekly hour of housework in a country in between [redacted phone].

Overall, the charts clearly reveal that housework is strongly related to the percentage of household equipments as the percentage increase, the number of housework hours decreases considerably.

In 1920, the percentages of washing machine, refrigerator and vaccum cleaner were below 40, while the weekly housework hours was 50 percent. In 1940, the number electric aplliances were increased tremendously to 60 percent and the housework hours was also gone down to nearly 30 percent. The number of household appliances, especially refrigerator, were again surged in 1960, meanwhile, housework hours gone down consistantly and touched 20 percent.

The housework hours were decreasing in the next 60 years, however in a slow pace. It is similar to the electrical appliances ownership trend for the same period where the percentage of refrigerator and vaccum cleaner lead the ralley but washing machine ownership remained constant with a slight increment.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response covers the main features of the charts, identifying the inverse relationship between appliance ownership and housework hours. However, the data reporting is inconsistent and occasionally inaccurate. For instance, the student states that housework hours were '50 percent' in 1920, whereas the chart indicates 50 hours. Similarly, the claim that housework hours 'touched 20 percent' in 1960 is a misinterpretation of the unit (hours vs. percentage). While the overall trend is captured, the failure to distinguish between units of measurement and the lack of precision in reporting specific data points limits the score.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The essay is organised into logical paragraphs, with an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs. There is a clear attempt to use cohesive devices such as 'In 1920', 'In 1940', and 'meanwhile'. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes hindered by awkward phrasing, such as 'the number of household appliances... were again surged'. The use of cohesive devices is occasionally mechanical, and the referencing between the two charts could be smoother to better highlight the comparative aspect of the task.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The range of vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks precision. There are several spelling errors, such as 'vaccum', 'aplliances', 'apllliances', and 'consistantly'. Additionally, word choice is sometimes imprecise, such as 'lead the ralley' and 'household equipments' (equipment is an uncountable noun). While the student attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary, the frequency of spelling and collocation errors prevents a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors that affect clarity. Subject-verb agreement is a recurring issue, for example, 'the number electric aplliances were increased' and 'housework hours gone down'. There are also issues with tense usage and prepositional phrases. While the meaning is generally understandable, the high frequency of errors in basic structures prevents the response from reaching a higher band.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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